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Project details
| Title: | Habitat and population assessment of giant crabs |
| Id: | 1719 |
| Investigator(s): | Alan Williams
CSIRO Oceans & Atmosphere - Hobart [details] |
| Description: | This project comprises a series of 5 surveys of giant crab (Pseudocarcinas gigas) habitats around Tasmania in waters of 150-350m depths, using video, multi-beam acoustic swath mapping, and sediment sampling, as a contribution to the joint TAFI/CMR project 'Understanding Shelf-break Habitat for Sustainable Management of Fisheries with Spatial Overlap'. Project aims include to define and map giant crab habitats, to describe the distribution of giant crabs in relation to habitat features, and to evaluate ecosystem links, the vulnerability of the habitat to damage by fishing, and the usefulness of video systems to obtain fishery independent information on giant crab abundance, sex ration, condition, and size. |
| Description (full): | This is the CSIRO portion of the collaborative Tasmanian Aquaculture and Fisheries Institute, University of Tasmania (TAFI)/CSIRO Marine Research Project titled 'Understanding Shelf-break Habitat for Sustainable Management of Fisheries with Spatial Overlap', which aims to map and understand shelf-break seabed habitats (~150-350m depths) around Tasmania, Australia, which is an area of interaction between two fishery sectors, giant crab trappers and finfish trawlers. Both of these have been expanding over the past decade, with potential to impact to target species abundance, habitat structure, and ecosystem structure. This project aims to research the habitat effects of these activities over the period 2003-2005 through sampling of fished and unfished areas using video transects, multi-beam acoustic swath mapping, and collection of physical samples using sediment grabs and benthic sleds, using chartered vessels and a voyage of the National Facility FRV Southern Surveyor in 2004. Specific objectives for the giant crab (Pseudocarcinas gigas) habitat survey are as follows: - define and map giant crab habitat on the shelf edge, at several key locations off the Tasmanian east and west coasts; detail distribution of giant crabs in relation to habitat features; - evaluate ecosystem links between habitats evaluate the vulnerability of habitat to damage by fishing (trawls and pots), and evaluate the ability to obtain fishery independent information by video on the abundance, sex ratio, condition and size of giant crabs. The CSIRO portion of the work will comprise a series of five surveys to assess the seabed habitats of the giant crab at the edge of the continental shelf around Tasmania. |
| Years: | 2003 to 2005 |
| Hierachy: | Sustainable Marine Ecosystems in SE Region |
List of surveys that this project was on. Click on column header to sort.
Use [details] link to view survey details (map, reports, metadata etc) including links to download data.
| Survey | Investigator | Description |
|---|---|---|
| CH 1/2005 [details] |
A. Williams (CSIRO), C. Gardner (TAFI) | |
| CH 1/2004 [details] |
A. Williams (CSIRO), C. Gardner (TAFI) | |
| DRII 1/2003 [details] |
Bruce Barker | This is the first of five Giant Crab surveys for the project titled 'Understanding Shelf-break Habitat for Sustainable Management of Fisheries with Spatial Overlap'. The operations comprised acoustic transects and cross shelf camera tows at four target sites (150-350m) on the west coast of Tasmania |